Jumble
by OmegaWolfStories
Summary: There's a reason Papyrus always found Junior Jumble so difficult. Its up to Frisk to cheer up her skeletal friend and we finally find out how he became known as "The Great Papyrus!" ((Just a cute little short fic. Be nice, I know its not well-written!))


**Jumble. **

Frisk had been staying with Sans and Papyrus for the last couple of days and this particular morning was pretty ordinary, by all accounts.  
Papyrus was cooking breakfast in the kitchen whilst grumbling about how Sans had overslept and was currently "wasting a beautiful morning".  
The smell of pancakes filled Frisk's nostrils as she sat patiently at the table, eagerly awaiting the sweet, sticky pile of goodness Papyrus would eventually bestow upon her.  
She noticed a "Junior Jumble" puzzle book carelessly pushed aside on the table and decided to try and tackle a puzzle before breakfast. Opening the book, she was rather surprised to see the words "Property of Sans the Skeleton" scribbled on the inside of the cover. This confused her; Sans always said that these puzzles were for "baby-bones" and he never even seemed all that interested in puzzles, that was more of _Papyrus' _thing. Still, it didn't really matter. Whichever brother it belonged to, she knew they wouldn't mind her solving one.  
She began working her way through the puzzle, which wasn't too difficult so she managed to unscramble the different words, one after another, which only made it more annoying when she finally came to a word she could not figure out.

"Hey Pap." she called to the lanky skeleton "could you help me with this?"

"What is it?" asked Papyrus, as he piled the now-finished pancakes onto a plate, taking them over to Frisk.

His eye-sockets fell upon the puzzle and he began to feel slightly uneasy.

"Junior Jumble, huh?" he laughed nervously "Of course I can help…"

"Are you sure?" asked Frisk, sensing an uneasiness in Papyrus' voice "you don't have to if you don't wanna…"

"The Great Papyrus does not walk away from a puzzling puzzle that needs un-puzzling!" he declared as he pulled the book towards himself "Now…let's see…"  
It read:  
_"Ctauehirrtce"_

Frisk could see the concentration in Papyrus' face, but after a few minutes, she began to see that concentration turn into what looked like worry. Two minutes turned into five, then five minutes turned into ten, and the longer he stared at the seemingly random mess of letters the more flustered he seemed to get.

"Mornin' guys…" yawned a tired voice coming from the other side of the kitchen.

It was Sans. Finally dragged himself out of bed to join the world of the living. He'd come downstairs for breakfast but was instead greeted by the sight of his younger brother obsessively staring at his puzzle book. Seeing the strain in Papyrus' face, Sans sighed and made his way towards them.

"Hey Pap, what are you doing?" he smiled as he pulled up a chair next to his brother

"Papyrus is helping me with this Junior Jumble!" chirped Frisk "I wish I was as smart as him!"

Sans didn't reply. Looking at his brother, he could see a familiar anxiety engulfing his face. He knew what this was but didn't want to call any attention to it.

"Want me to take a look, bro?" asked Sans

"No, no!" fretted Papyrus "Give me a sec!"

As he stared at the word, Papyrus began to panic. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what this word could possibly be. The longer he stared at it, the letters seemed to dance around the page, flickering in and out of focus, seemingly disappearing and reappearing over and over again. He glanced over at Frisk who was eagerly awaiting his answer. Not wanting to disappoint her, he decided to give it his best guess.

"Um….character?" he squeaked hopefully

"No that can't be right!" giggled Frisk "There needs to be two 'A's and no 'U!"

"Oh…yes…of course, that's right…" he blushed in reply

Well, now he felt dumb. He looked up at his brother with a look on his face which almost screamed "help me!"

"Architecture." said Sans as he wrote the surprisingly difficult word on the paper "it's architecture…but you already knew that, right Pap?"

Papyrus didn't reply, without warning, he abruptly left the kitchen leaving Frisk and Sans at a loss for words.

Frisk was especially confused, having never seen Papyrus this flustered before.

"Did…I upset him?" she asked Sans, guiltily fiddling with the bottom of her purple and blue sweater "I wasn't really laughing _at _him…"

Sans reassured Frisk that she had nothing to do with how his brother was feeling.

"You stay here and eat these pancakes" he smiled as he pulled the plate towards Frisk "I'm gonna go talk to him real quick!"

**After some time, Sans finally reappeared. **  
He'd been upstairs with Papyrus for a good half an hour and Frisk hadn't moved from the kitchen table, eagerly awaiting the skeletons' return.

"Is Papyrus okay?" she asked as Sans sat in the chair next to her.

"Yeah…he's fine…" sighed the skeleton

"Then…why did he run off? I upset him…didn't I?"

Frisk felt awful. Looking at Sans, she could tell that there was something that really upset Papyrus.

"Please Sans…" she almost begged "If I've hurt his feelings or something…I wanna make it right…"

Sans let out a sad sigh. He slightly turned his body so that he was fully facing his human friend and looked her straight in the eye.  
He'd spoken with Papyrus, who'd given his blessing to brother to explain his situation to Frisk as he was to ashamed to explain it himself.

"Look kid…" Sans began "First of all, what I'm about to tell you cannot leave this house, understand?"

Frisk nodded in response.

"I mean it Frisk, it'd destroy him if more people knew about this, swear to me you won't tell ANYONE…"

"Yes, yes I promise!" she fretted "Please tell me, I'm really worried about him!"

Sans took a deep breath and prepared his explanation.

"Okay…it wasn't you who got him all worked up…it was the junior jumble…"

Frisk was so confused. The word puzzle? The one made for kids? How on Earth could that upset him?

"I don't understand…" replied the young human

"You see…Pap has…trouble with reading and writing sometimes…"

"He does?!" gasped Frisk "But…he loves reading! I've seen all of those books in his room!"

"Yeah I know but, most of them he's never actually read…and the ones he has read by himself are simple puzzle instruction books…"

Frisk didn't know how to process all of this. Papyrus had a huge collection of books of all different kinds on the bookshelf in his room and she always assumed he'd read them all or at least most of them. Some of the books in his collection were those "choose-your-own-adventure-books" which he'd described the plot to her before.

"He's told me that he's read a ton though!" she fretted "He's even told me what happens in a lot of the adventure books he has!"

"Because I read them to him…" Sans smiled sadly "I've done that since we were kids…the cruel irony is that he loves reading…he just…struggles with it…"

Frisk felt awful for her skeletal friend. He'd been harbouring this secret for all his life and she _laughed _when he couldn't solve a stupid word puzzle. She knew she had to talk to him.

**With Sans' blessing she made her way to Papyrus' room. **  
She stood at his bedroom door, which was firmly shut, and knocked gently 3 times.

No answer.

"Papyrus?" she called to him as she knocked again "Can I come in?"

"Of course!" he called back, voice slightly shaking.

Frisk opened the door and let herself into the room only to see Papyrus sat on his race car bed. On his lap, she saw that he was holding a very heavy-looking book which appeared to be an adventure book but she didn't focus on that for long. She looked up at his face, seeing tear-stains on his cheekbones which obviously shown that he had been crying. Despite all of this, he forced a smile.

"Hello human!" he smiled "what can I do for you?"

"Nothing really…" she smiled back as she sat next to him on the bed "I just…wanted to see if you were okay…"

"Yes, yes, yes, I am fine!" he declared as he smiled at her once again, this time, clearly forced "completely, and totally fine!"

A few seconds of silenced followed.

"I…um…I'm sorry about before…" she sighed as she rubbed the back of her neck guiltily "You know…the junior jumble…I didn't mean to laugh…"

"Don't be silly!" he smiled "You didn't do anything wrong!"

She could tell he was putting on a brave face. It was time to address the elephant in the room.

"I was just talking to your brother in the kitchen…" she sighed, seeing Papyrus slightly freeze up.

"Oh…yeah?" he gulped as he ran his hand over the front cover of the book "Did…he say anything about me?"

"Yeah…" she smiled sympathetically "is that okay?"

Papyrus knew exactly what she was talking about. He felt so ashamed, he could barely look her in the eye.

"Yeah…" he blushed "I told him he could…"

Another short silenced followed but what broke the silence really shocked Frisk.

"I'm not stupid…" he sighed sadly

"Of course you're not!" Frisk gasped in response "What makes you say that?!"

"When I was a kid…in school…I heard some kids say it once…because I couldn't spell my name…"

As he spoke, Frisk could hear little emotional breaks in his voice. She couldn't help but think that if he'd had lips, they'd be quivering with emotion.

"You were little…" she said naively as she placed her hand over his "Not everyone can spell their names when they're little…"

"I wasn't _that _little when it happened…I was twelve-years-old…" tears began welling up in his eye sockets "It was the worst day of my life…"

Noticing the tears, Frisk scooted closer to him and rested her head against his arm, desperately trying to reassure him. Feeling the comfort and support from his friend, Papyrus gave a small but meaningful smile as he wiped the tears away.

"I remember…" he smiled "around that time…is when Sans started calling me the _Great _Papyrus…"

"So Sans gave you that nickname?!" beamed Frisk

"Yeah!" Papyrus smiled back "Whenever someone put me down he was always there to build me back up again…"

It was all starting to make sense.  
Papyrus' confidence, his ego, his energetic enthusiasm, it all came from Sans encouraging him every step of the way no matter how hard he struggled.

"He's such a good brother!" Frisk smiled

"He's the BEST!" Papyrus declared proudly "After all, it only makes sense that the best brother raised the best soon-to-be royal guardsman!"

Frisk found this almost adorable.  
Ever since she had met the skeletons, Papyrus almost seemed constantly annoyed at Sans' laid-back attitude and at the same time, Sans seemed to enjoy winding his younger brother up. It was nice to see how much they actually cared about each other and what was even more amazing was how much Papyrus appeared to actually look up to Sans.  
It was all falling into place. Sans was always talking about how awesome his brother was and how popular he was with the other monsters in the underground. In reality, Sans only told him this to boost his confidence.  
Just then, Frisk had an idea.

"Hey, um…Papyrus?" she began "are you…comfortable with writing?"

"Uh…well…I'm not too-great at writing…" he said quietly as his smile turned to a frown "I'm better than I was though!"

"Because…" she smiled as she got up from the bed, walked over to Papyrus' desk and brought back a pen and a notebook. "If I helped you, maybe you could write Sans a letter telling him how great you think he is!"

Papyrus shot her a confused look.

"Why can't I just tell him that?! Seems like a lot of trouble to go to…"

In reality, he thought it was a good idea but he really wasn't sure about attempting to write in front of Frisk.  
It was true that he had gotten a lot better at writing since he'd grown up but he still struggled with spelling. Truth-be-told he was afraid he'd embarrass himself in front of her.  
Noticing his hesitation, she smiled and placed the pen in his hand.

"Come on! It'll be kinda fun!" she beamed "I'll help you!"

"I'm not a child!" he blushed stubbornly "I just…think he'd like it better if I told him how great he is…that's all!"

"But just think how proud he'd be of you if you wrote it out!"

After a few seconds of thought, Papyrus relented. Thinking of how proud Sans would be and with Frisk's help, he began his letter.

**A few hours had passed since Sans had told Frisk about Papyrus **and whilst the little human was talking to his brother, he'd decided to take an early morning nap in his room.  
He was in a deep sleep when suddenly, he heard a knock at his door, breaking him out of his siesta.  
Groaning, he forced himself off of his mattress and as he made his way towards his door, he noticed that an envelope had been slipped under his door.  
As he picked it up he noticed that the word "brother" had been written on the front of it in crude but careful handwriting.  
He smiled as he realised who it was from. Carefully, he opened at and read it aloud.

"_Dear Sans.  
I am riting this letter to let you know how amasing you are and to thank you for all of the things you do for me.  
Thank you for not just being my brother but for also being the best frend I have ever had.  
Thank you for beeleeving in me always.  
I Love you big brother.  
From The Great Papyrus!"_

Sans was at a loss for words.  
It was the most perfect thing he'd ever read even down to the spelling mistakes. Looking at the perfect imperfection that was Papyrus' handwriting filled him with pride as he realised just how far his little brother had come. From not being able to spell his name to now writing letters.  
He carried the letter to the bedside table that sat next to his mattress and propped it up against a framed photo of him and Papyrus when they were children. Looking at the photo, he simply smiled to himself and said;

"You really are the Great Papyrus…"


End file.
